


when evening wind blows strongest

by simplyclockwork



Series: folklore and fantasy [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adult John Watson, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Child John Watson, Fae & Fairies, Fae!Sherlock, First Kiss, Folklore, Gen, Ghillie Dhu, John Watson in Afghanistan, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, POV John Watson, Scotland, Scottish Folklore, Time Skips, Urban Legends, fae, forest spirit, kiss, mild mild angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26529532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/pseuds/simplyclockwork
Summary: Growing up in the Scottish highlands, John Watson heard the stories of the fae from hisseanmhair.As a child, he wandered too far into the forest, only to find himself lost after nightfall. After a meeting that changed his life, John grew to an adult, but the memory of the fae never truly faded.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: folklore and fantasy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962853
Comments: 31
Kudos: 118





	when evening wind blows strongest

**Author's Note:**

> Forever and ever and ever ago, @mundancheemudomo on tumblr sent me this writing prompt:
> 
> _  
> **“One day, John gets lost in a big forest. He is finally helped by the spirit of the forest, Sherlock. They spend the night together, and Sherlock shows John his powers.”**  
> _
> 
> [The Ghillie Dhu](https://joan-llopis-domenech.tumblr.com/post/181710426107/ghillie-dhu-the-ghillie-dhu-or-gille-dubh-was-a) was a solitary male fae who protected forests and lived in/around birch trees. Sometimes depicted as a child or a man, he was said to be generally calm, with the capacity for wildness. He was kind and protective of children (including an urban legend where he helped a little girl lost in her woods find her way home), and could be aggressive to men and adults for harming his woods. 
> 
> This story borrows heavily from that tale, with some creative changes made for the sake of fanfic and Johnlock. 
> 
> **\--------**
> 
> _Deep in the forest,  
>  In a sea-green light,  
> Where the fern springs thickest  
> In eternal night,_
> 
> _The white moths weave their pattern  
>  Above the blind mole’s mound,  
> And badger comes to fatten  
> On what his eyes can find._
> 
> _And where the nimble stoats rehearse  
>  Their ballet of the kill,  
> Half-hidden by a century’s moss  
> There grins a human skull._
> 
> _It has been home for beetle  
>  And shelter for the snake,  
> And half the woodland people  
> Have heard its dry lips speak;_
> 
> _When evening wind blows strongest,  
>  Sounds in the sockets stir.  
> The creatures of the forest  
> Forget when it came there._
> 
> **Deep in the Forest - Henry Treece**

When John was a wee lad, no taller than his father’s knee, he spent many an afternoon sat next to his spry _seanmhair,_ watching her peel potatoes, work on her knits, sort through the crab apples picked with reverence from twisted, wild apple trees at the edge of the forest. John helped where he could, his small hands smooth next to her weathered palms and swollen knuckles, and he listened to her voice as she told him stories. Tales of long-gone Scotsmen, of red-haired maidens, of changelings and the fae of the moorlands. Her words filled his head and fed his dreams and waking-fantasies. 

When John played, he ran among the selkies, the giants, the nymphs that capered and gallivanted through the imagined world stretching wide before him. 

Two days after his sixth birthday, John dreamed himself into the forest bordering their home. He ventured deep, chasing the imagined flicker of will-o-the-wisps that danced at the corners of his eyes, stopping only when his legs tired and dumped him down on a log. 

Sunlight spun down through the canopy of the trees, the shade dappled yellow over his hands as he held them up and marvelled over the way his skin seemed to change with the shifting of the branches overhead. There was a humming tranquillity in the air as it danced leaves past his perch, and John reached for one. His fingers caught on the greenery, the edges beginning to curl with the turn of autumn, a bit of life held in his palm. 

John opened his hand as the breeze drifted by, letting it pluck the leaf from his grip and send it twirling into the shadows. He smiled, watching until it was out of sight, lost in the shade beneath the trees, and slid off his log. But when he turned back the way he’d come, the trees all looked identical. They stretched their shivering boughs toward him as if reaching, grabbing, and John shrank back. The easy peace he had felt seconds ago seemed to be fading, darkening into a sense of uneasy disquiet. 

The wind picked up into a wail, and John, his blue eyes wide with sombre concern, pressed himself back down to the log. Once a perfect perch, it now dug into his thighs and calves with sharp bark and bumpy protrusions. He scrambled back to his feet, hands clenched together as sweat dampened his palms. 

With the trees dancing in the gust, John backed into a hollow in the ground and huddled amongst tall grass and heather. The delicate scent of the purple flowers suddenly seemed sickeningly sweet, no longer a familiar comfort.

Knees pulled up to his chest with his arms wrapped tight around them, John hunkered with his back against a birch tree, startling each time the grass shifted in the wind and tickled his legs. He watched the sky darken through the tops of the trees, turning the dappled quality of the forest into something far more sinister. The shadows widened and spread, his eyes growing larger with each passing minute as the sun crept toward the west. 

Dusk hung heavy, balanced between twilight and true night, the land taking on a softened quality that did little to comfort John. Lost in the woods with no idea how to return home, he was beginning to shiver when the first stars winked through the foliage overhead. 

The wind brought with it the sound of creaking. It sounded like whispering voices, hidden in the dark. John hugged his legs tighter to his body and breathed a deep, quiet sigh, telling himself it was just the trees. The forest was home to many animals. It was their space and, if he was very, very quiet, he could keep from disturbing them.

Something burst out from the branches overhead, followed by the harsh cackling of a raven, and John surged to his feet, running before he could stop himself. He heard his _seanmhair’s_ voice in his head, her tales of the _Slaugh,_ those spirits of the restless dead cursed to haunt the living world. They were dangerous, to be feared and avoided. 

_Seanmhair_ said they took the shapes of crows or ravens, seeking out the dying—or the lost—to feed on their souls. 

John ran. Ran with his short legs pumping, his young heart thundering wild in his ears, breath coming hard and fast until every inhale tasted like the blunt edge of a knife. Chest burning, he pushed himself to go faster, hell-bent on sprinting until his legs gave in or his heart burst, whichever came first. 

Four steps further, his feet fumbled and caught on something round and hard, the object catching up with him as he rolled down a gentle slope. He came to a stop with a yelp and a curse that he’d once heard his da make when he stepped on a nail. 

John, left sprawled on his back, stared up at the stars. Here, the sky was visible, the trees spaced out around a clearing, the night gazing down upon him with a half-moon. His eyes locked on the cold spin of galaxies overhead, John sucked in great lungfuls of air and waited for his vision to stop swirling.

Whatever he had tripped over rolled down to meet him, and he startled when it bumped into his hip. Sitting up with a grimace for his scraped knees, John squinted in the dark, reaching for the unknown object.

What he held up to his face made him shout and scramble back on hands and knees, hurling the thing away. It rolled to a stop against a rock, a gleaming skull that stared at him with gaping eye sockets as John glared at it. He panted and narrowed his eyes, making a gesture he had seen his _seanmhair_ make when speaking of the more malevolent creatures that called Scotland home. The motion wasn’t one he fully understood, but it was meant to ward off evil. John forked two aggressive fingers straight into the air at the skull as an added ward. He’d done it once after his older sister used the sign on him, and had been fed soap and sent to bed without supper. He thought it couldn’t hurt to use it here, with no one but the eyeless skull to see him. John was, after all, alone.

So he thought. 

A breeze rose, played through his hair, bringing with it the smell of moss and soil, and something sharply unfamiliar. John heard a rustling and froze, gaze still locked with that of the skull. Six-years-old and filled with the early signs of piss and vinegar, John turned his head to look over his shoulder. Through the falling dark, he saw flickering phantoms and blowing leaves, and then the figure of a person. They emerged from the restless shadows. He breathed a sigh heavy with warring emotions. While relief flooded him at the sight of another human, his stomach roiled with the apprehension inspired in children by an unfamiliar face. 

Still struggling between hope and fear, John stiffened as the figure stepped into the clearing, and he realized it was not human at all. Similar, but different enough to imbue him with a sense of wrongness as he looked upon the creature’s face. He shrank back in awe of the sharp, angular shape of its features and the eyes that seemed to shift colour, flashing first sea-green, then slate-grey, then a silvery-blue. They pierced through John to where his heart fluttered wild in his chest. 

The creature moved into the starlight, bending and unfolding from the trees, and when it stood over John, it left him feeling small. It seemed to tower over him, its tangled, curly hair wild and dark, festooned with leaves and flowers in bloom. It smelled of rotting plants and the first day of spring, wet soil and the sweet sap of a pine tree. John tilted his head back to look up, up, up at its face and found those sharp eyes pinning him in place. 

When it knelt and reached out a hand to brush sweat-damp hair from his brow, John’s eyes went wide, and he held his breath. The being looked back at him with a curious expression as John studied it. The fingers touching lightly against his forehead were long and elegant, with short fingernails. Pale skin, thick, dark lashes, and a long, slender body finished the image, modesty preserved by a cloak made of wispy moss and leaves. The garment draped from narrow shoulders, swirling the smell of damp earth whenever its wearer moved. 

His gaze caught and held by the hyper-intelligent eyes, their colours still shifting, changing, flashing, John found a name on his tongue. He coughed and spat it out, wheezing, “ _Ghillie Dhu.”_

The fae creature tapped a long finger to his chin as if congratulating him. In the starlight, the _Ghillie Dhu’s_ hair appeared silver, and John reached out a curious, reverent hand to brush the flower-and-leaf-decorated curls. The strands were surprisingly soft, and John crushed delicate locks gently beneath his palm. He had heard a name, once, a name which meant _fair-haired,_ and while up close he saw the fae’s hair was the same rich, dark brown as tree bark, he couldn’t shake the image of a silver halo wreathing the creature’s head. 

_Sherlock_ , he thought, latching onto that fiction. The _Ghillie Dhu_ seemed to shimmer before him, and John’s eyelids drooped, suddenly heavy. He yawned, comforted by the smell of rich earth and plants in bloom. Before he knew it, his head was sagging, and his eyes had closed. The night dissolved around him, and the image of starlight faded from his vision.

  
  
  
  


When he opened his eyes, John saw the familiar sight of his bedroom ceiling. He blinked, frowned, and lurched up into a sitting position, looking wildly around the room. In the next bed over, his sister Harry was still asleep. The light warming the space was pale and hesitant, reddish with the dawn. John shook his head and rubbed at his eyes before peering around again. 

He was back at home, surrounded by the familiar. Had it all been a dream?

John rolled out of bed and padded down the hall to the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he climbed onto a booster stool and stared at his reflection. There was a long scratch on one cheek. A streak of dirt marred the edge of his jaw and the skin over his left eye. He leaned against the sink and hissed, knees stinging where they pressed into the cupboards. John pulled up the legs of his dirty trousers, realizing he still wore his clothes from the day before. Shallow scrapes stung on his knees, the cuts filthy with dried blood and mud. He grimaced and plucked out a bit of dead leaf, frowning as fresh blood welled up.

“Harry? Is that you?” The sound of his mum’s voice drifted from the hall before she looked into the bathroom and froze at the sight of him. “John!” 

John blinked up at her with blood trickling down his shin, bemused when she dropped to her knees and swept him into her arms. “Ma?”

“John! Where have you been?” She leaned back to cradle his head between her palms, eyes wide and panicked as she searched his face. “You didn’t come home for supper or nightfall. We… we thought…” Shaking her head, she drew him in for another tight hug, John’s dirty face pressed into her shoulder. He heard footsteps before the tall, broad-shouldered figure of his father filled the doorway, staring down at his wife and son with a furrowed brow. John’s _seanmhair_ wasn’t far behind, peering around her son with an amused glint in her eyes.

“See the sticks in his hair?” she said, sounding pleased. “Had a run-in with the _Ghillie Dhu,_ he did.” 

John’s dad scoffed. “Enough, ma. Stop filling his head with such nonsense. That’s probably what had him run off in the first place.” Still frowning, he shook his head. “Come on, Jean. He needs a bath. I can smell him from here.” 

Releasing him reluctantly, John’s mother settled on her heels and smiled tightly. “Alright, Hamish,” she said over her shoulder. “You could at least pretend to be happy to see your son.” 

His expression stiff, Hamish reached out and patted John’s shoulder with a brisk tap that nearly knocked the slight boy down in his exhausted state. “Glad yer back, boy,” he said gruffly before turning and disappearing back down the hall. 

“Go tend to breakfast,” John’s _seanmhair_ told his mother, shooing her away with impatient hands. “I’ll see to Ian.” His _seanmhair_ always used his Gaelic name, ignoring how her daughter-in-law rolled her eyes after correcting her for the umpteenth time. 

Once they were alone in the bathroom, John promptly stripped out of his filthy clothes as his _seanmhair_ ran him a bath, helping him step into the steaming water. Wincing as the soap and heat stung in his cuts, John folded into the tub and shoved his head beneath the surface, shaking out his brown-blonde hair. 

When he surfaced, his _seanmhair_ grinned and plucked a twig from his hair. “Now, _mo ghaol,_ tell me about the _Ghillie Dhu.”_

**____________**

John grew from a child with skinny legs and knobby knees to a man with broad shoulders like his father. He had the kind eyes of his mother and the imagination of his _seanmhair._ When she passed, John, at the tender age of eighteen, held her hand until the light faded from her eyes, and she squeezed his fingers one final time with a smile. Even after, when her room whistled silent and empty until Harry moved her things into the space, John carried her stories with him. He whispered them to himself before sleep, dreaming of the fae, the forest, the waving heather and the landscape of Scotland. 

His schooling took him away from home, his mother weeping and his father stone-faced, travelling to London to study medicine. When his father collapsed in the front yard of his childhood home, dead from a sudden and massive heart attack, John joined the military to pay his way. He would finish his schooling, become a doctor and take care of his mother and sister, even if Harry no longer lived at home and hadn’t for years. 

Throughout it all, he held onto his _seanmhair’s_ stories, her tales and folklore. He kept them close to his heart in a dog-eared notebook, tucked into the pocket of his shirt. Even if his path no longer looked like the myths and lore she had spun for the tow-headed boy who had sat on her lap, hanging on her every word, John remembered. He would return there, one day, and take over the family home for his mother. He would work the land and, when he wasn’t deep in the dirt, he would practice medicine for the locals. 

As with all best-laid-plans, John’s road was cut short by the cruelty of life. Insurgents ambushed his convoy in Afghanistan, and he watched sand and shrapnel rise into the air with ears ringing from the force of a percussion blast. 

He took a bullet in the shoulder and collapsed onto his knees. John thought he felt a sting there, and, for a brief moment, he was six-years-old again with skinned knees and twigs in his hair. His _seanmhair’s_ soft laughter brushed the hair on his head, and he heard the smile in her voice as she told him of the _Slaugh_ , the _selkies_ and the fickle fae who ruled the moors. 

John looked into the sky, the sun beating down on his face, and remembered silver starlight haloed over dark curls. 

  
  
  
  


When he opened his eyes, the canvas roof of a tent hid the sky. John burned with fever, pain, and too-little morphine. He rolled his head to the side and saw men and women in various stages of suffering, and wondered when the white-hot tear of teeth in his left shoulder would stop. 

He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. The severe, throbbing pain was intense enough to nearly numb half his body, the morphine barely dampening the edges of the hungry beast gnawing into his skin. He could taste blood in his mouth, feel the wound tearing away at him.

Beneath the pain was the phantom sensation of skinned knees, a finger tapping gently against his shin.

John closed his eyes and pushed his face into the pillow.

**____________**

He was empty, a hollowed-out echo of John Watson. The bright-eyed boy who had once tumbled through heather and tall grass to pursue imagined enemies had returned home having encountered real battle. The war had left him scarred, one leg slower than the other, his left arm, once his strong, dominant side, now diminished and aching with lingering pain that clung like the chill air of a winter evening. 

The house was bare and empty, his mother gone south to live with her sister, the Scottish highland too cold for her ageing bones and joints. One of the windows gaped, the glass broken and sharp with leaves blown inside and scattered over the stone floors. Too exhausted to start repairs, John taped cardboard over the hole, kicked debris into the corner, and collapsed into the bed his parents had once shared. Brief distaste at sleeping where his cold father once slept flickered through his mind. But his exhaustion was such that John passed into sleep before he could give the fleeting thought credence. 

In the morning, John’s eyes cracked open with the dawn, his body still obstinate about waking at first light despite John having been discharged from the army a little over three months before. As he lay in bed, shoulder aching and stiff, he stared at the wall across from him. The house smelled of dust and damp, and John listened to the twittering of birds outside. 

When he rose, he moved about the house at a hobble, leaning heavily on a plain metal cane that clicked against the floor with every step. He hated the thing, despised its very existence even as he relied heavily on its presence. 

John shuffled outside and settled into a rickety chair in front of the house, determined to build a list of what he needed to do to make the dwelling habitable. Instead, he sat and watched the sun move across the sky, taking in the stark scenery of the moors, the faint glimmer of a loch in the distance. 

The day had passed into evening when he emerged from his stupor, feeling the strange absence of hunger where he should be ravenous. 

Rising, John limped away from the house. He felt drawn, answering a voiceless call he couldn’t refuse. Even with his uneven gait, the cottage disappeared behind him swiftly, and it wasn’t long before John found himself surrounded by trees. They pressed in, just as they had when he was a child, lost and stiff with terror. 

Now, he only felt the same grave, dragging melancholy that had become his constant companion. Just like the hated cane, it was a part of his new life. His new status as a man turned hollow. 

Walking through the woods, he thought of his _seanmhair_. John wondered if enough of his soul remained to fear the ravenous _Slaugh_. 

The sun began to fade into the horizon, the cobalt of the sky burning into gold, cold and unfeeling. John stopped and found himself in a place he had not seen since childhood, but which had lingered in his dreams. He took in the stately, rustling birch trees, the tall grass rippled by a sudden and wild wind. There was the log he had once sat on, the gentle slope he had tumbled down in the grip of fear. 

Raising his head, John searched the trees for the dark wings of a raven, but the leaves shifted and blurred in the dark, and the shadows played tricks with his eyes. 

He made his way down the decline with care, scowling at his cane. Even being cautious, his right foot slipped in slick mud, the left buckling and sending him down the slope on his rear. John caught himself on a log, a sharp rock slicing through his jeans to bloody his shin. Sitting on the ground with the grass waving around him, John tilted his head back. He wanted to scream, to shout and rage at what he had become, a shadow of himself. Instead, he laughed, the sound sudden and loud in the settling woods. The timbre of his laughter shot past mirth and right into hysteria, the edges ragged and raw. He laughed until his throat ached, and his lashes clumped with the suspicious moisture rising in his eyes. 

The laugher died in his throat with a choke, and John tilted onto his back, letting the sodden ground soak into his clothing. Despite the damp, he didn’t feel cold. He felt empty, a walking void. He stared up at the stars, just as he had as a child, and felt far smaller now than he had back then. On that night, when he disappeared into the forest and found himself lost, John had felt dismayed. He felt the same now but for different reasons. That night, he had wondered how he would ever find his way home. Here, staring at the night sky, he wondered if _home_ still existed for him. 

A memory flickered through his thoughts, and John sat up, remembering what had sent him tumbling down the slow hill as a child. He searched the dark, squinting until he found it, a white curve concealed by twisting grass. Reaching out, John plucked the skull from the forest growth that had claimed it, shaking off beetles and millipedes that crawled out of the open mouth. With it cradled between his palms, John looked into the empty eye sockets. 

As a child, the skull had terrified him. As a grown man who had seen war and death and nearly died himself, John met that black gaze and didn’t look away. Picked clean by carrion birds and the passing of time, the skull’s appearance was the purest face of Death he had encountered.

The faint sound of whispering grass drew his attention, and John raised his head, looking past the skull and into the treeline. At first, he saw only shadows. Gradually, his eyes adjusted, and a tall shape emerged, no longer blending into the trees as it stepped into the clearing. 

Starlight turned dark curls silver, and John’s breath caught. Recognition washed over him, familiarity filtering through the fogged, dragging quality of his thoughts. 

The _Ghillie Dhu._

The name stuck in John’s mind as if the fae creature had introduced himself out loud. The tall being moved forward, his movements graceful, balanced, leaf-and-moss cloak fluttering about his tall form. He crossed the clearing with sure, quick strides to where John still sat on the ground with dew soaking through the seat of his ripped jeans. 

Just as he had all those years ago, the _Ghillie Dhu_ knelt before him, reached out, and touched a long, delicate finger to John’s forehead. Startled by the echoing past, John opened his mouth to voice a bark of surprise, but he choked instead, his throat tight. 

The _Ghillie Dhu_ tilted his head, his sharp, kaleidoscopic eyes darting over John’s face. “You are lost.” He spoke Scottish Gaelic, his voice a deep hum. The sound of it reminded John of trees in the winter, their iced boughs creaking in the wind. The _Ghillie Dhu’s_ eyes flashed silver, and his fingertip drew a slow, arcing line along John’s forehead. “But you are not lost in the forest. You are lost here.” Another light touch danced over John’s brow before the creature shook his head, hand dropping to hover just in front of John’s chest, over where his heart raced wildly behind his ribcage. “And here. You are lost in here as well.”

Eyes fixed on the fae-man’s strange, hard-featured face, John pulled in a shaky breath. “What is your name?” he asked in the same language, rusty but fluent, his voice strained. The _Ghillie Dhu_ studied him silently before replying.

“I am _Ghillie Dhu._ I do not have a name.” His lips pursed, and he peered at John. “Do you?”

“John.” Clearing his throat, John frowned. “I’m John Watson.” 

“John Watson,” the _Ghillie Dhu_ repeated, shaping the name with a slow roll of his tongue. He tilted his head and asked, “What would you name me?”

Watching the starlight shimmer silver over the _Ghillie Dhu’s_ dark curls, John breathed, “Sherlock.” That had been the name that his child-self imagined, and it immediately came to his tongue. “I would call you Sherlock.”

The _Ghillie Dhu,_ now Sherlock, smiled. His teeth were pointed and straight, and John frowned at the sight before he realized there seemed to be nothing but curious interest emanating from Sherlock. It softened his wariness.

“Sherlock.” The _Ghillie Dhu_ withdrew his hand, pressing both together beneath his chin. It looked like he was praying, but Sherlock’s eyes remained open, watching John’s face with a bright glimmer in their shifting depths. “Fair-haired?” The question caught John off-guard, and he grimaced. 

“Yeah, I know. But the starlight makes your hair look silver.” John paused and asked, “Wait… you know English words?”

Sherlock watched him for a silent moment before replying, “I am older than the English.” He didn’t elaborate, and John didn’t press. Clouds passed over the moon, the clearing disappearing into shadow, Sherlock’s pale face a faint smudge of white in the dark. John shivered, and Sherlock tilted his head again. “Why did you come to my woods, John Watson?”

“Ah, John is fine,” John replied, buying for time. “And… I don’t know.” He shifted off the ground and onto a log, grimacing at the stiffness in his shoulder. “I was here, once, as a child—”

Sherlock interrupted him, “I remember.” Unfolding his steepled hands, the _Ghillie Dhu_ rose. As he stood at his full height, John was just as stunned by Sherlock’s size as he had been in his childhood. He cleared his throat nervously and kneaded at his shoulder. 

“Right,” he said, tongue flicking out to wet his dry lips. “I… I don’t know why I came.” 

“You are lost,” Sherlock said, stating a fact. John, looking up at him, nodded slowly. “You’ve experienced loss. Seen pain and felt it.” His eyes darted to John’s shoulder, and John dropped his hand, clasping both together in his lap. “You _know_ pain.” His forehead creased with a small frown, Sherlock looked around the clearing. His gaze landed on the skull, set down by John’s foot, and he bent to pick it up. It fit in his palm as if made for his grasp, and Sherlock straightened, eyes fixed on the remains. “These woods have known pain and loss as well.” He turned the skull toward John, the empty mouth grinning eerily at him. 

“Did you know them?” John blinked, realizing he was talking with a creature of myth in the middle of the woods. If not for his _seanmhair,_ John would have thought himself mad. 

“They were a friend,” Sherlock replied, tilting the skull until it caught the starlight, the clouds drifting onward, revealing the moon once more. He glanced at John and smiled his sharp smile, strange amusement lingering at the edges of his full lips. “Well, I say friend…”

John narrowed his eyes in thought, trying to look past the surreality of the situation. “Is that… I mean, is that something you have? Friends?” he added, catching Sherlock’s questioning look. Sherlock’s mouth flattened into a confused line.

“I am fae. Solitary. Friends are not something I need.” 

“But you know the word,” John pointed out. Sherlock smirked at him as if amused. 

“I know many words.”

He had John there. “Fair enough,” he conceded. His leg was beginning to stiffen, and he struggled to his feet, looking around the clearing with a frown. He felt Sherlock at his shoulder, the smell of him a heady mixture of soil, greenery, and fresh flowers. John turned to peer up at him and found Sherlock looking back.

“Do you ever get lonely?” he asked, the question surprising them both. “You said you’re solitary.” John shrugged, glaring down at the ground with pursed lips. “It sounds lonely.”

“Solitary doesn’t mean lonely.” Sherlock’s reply had John looking up again. He watched the _Ghillie Dhu_ stoop and reach for a closed flower on a bush. His fingertips brushed the bud, and it unfurled, revealing a dazzling splash of bright colour in the moonlight. John blinked, a surprised sound escaping his lips, and Sherlock quirked a brow. “I am alone, but I am not lonely. I have all I need right here. Here is where I belong for I am not one to be lost.” 

Eyes still locked on the flower, John whispered, “I wonder what that feels like, to belong.” 

“That is something you must find for yourself, John Watson.” Sherlock straightened, long legs bringing him back to his full height. With both of them standing, John found he barely came to the _Ghillie Dhu’s_ shoulder. Always on the shorter side of most men, John found himself unperturbed. 

In an abrupt movement, Sherlock strode across the clearing toward the treeline. John shook himself from his thoughts, shocked at the sudden departure. He stood and gaped, stunned until Sherlock paused and turned toward him from the edge of the trees. His voice, lilting velvet, carried easily to him on a faint breeze. “Are you coming, John Watson? Or do you prefer to stay lost?” 

John hurried forward, finding himself beside Sherlock in the next breath, looking up into his inhuman face. “I don’t want to be lost,” he said breathlessly, blinking as starlight winked in Sherlock’s eyes. “Not anymore.” 

A small smile twitched over Sherlock’s Cupid’s bow lips. “Good. Then come with me.” Sherlock faced forward and began to move through the trees. Instead of disrupting the shadows, they seemed to embrace Sherlock, draping over his limbs with the tender touch of a lover’s hands. John paused to glance over his shoulder at the clearing one last time before he hurried to follow.

In the grass sat the skull, grinning its eternal grin up at the stars. Next to it lay John’s cane, the mud sucking the forgotten object into the earth. 

  
  
  
  


John followed Sherlock through the trees as the night deepened around them. He listened to the sounds of wildlife, the scurrying of feet, the distant calls of nocturnal animals. John heard the harsh croak of a raven and stiffened, but Sherlock didn’t so much as pause, and John breathed a sigh as they carried on.

They walked in silence, Sherlock moving with a steady grace that drew John’s eyes to his long legs and slender arms. Looking at Sherlock with his angular face obscured by the night, it was almost possible to think him human. But then Sherlock would turn and watch John back, and it was impossible to miss the feral glimmer in his eyes, or the pointed gleam of his sharp teeth whenever he smiled. 

Sherlock drew to a sudden stop, and John stumbled before he could find his balance. Sherlock’s hand wrapped around his right arm and pulled him upright, his grip lingering despite John’s feet finding solid ground. When he raised his gaze, heart still racing from his almost-fall, John saw that Sherlock was standing close, his head tilted.

“John Watson,” he said in a grave voice, his eyes fixed on John’s. The irises flickered, shone a verdant green that gleamed in the dark, and John swallowed around a sudden tightness in his throat. He waited for Sherlock to speak again, but only silence met his expectant expression. His name faded slowly in the space between their faces, warmed by their breathing.

John swallowed again, managing a soft, strained, “Yes?”

To his surprise, Sherlock cupped John’s face between his large hands, his touch rasping like the bark of a tree. John blinked and huffed a soft, startled breath as Sherlock looked down into his eyes. “You don’t have to stay lost,” he said in a whisper that reminded John of leaves tossed in a breeze, “if you let yourself be found.” 

Before John could think of a response, stunned by the firm, comforting grip, Sherlock bent and brushed his lips over John’s brow. The contact was a quicksilver dance on his skin, making John’s body tingle, the sensation rippling out from where Sherlock’s lips pressed just above his left eyebrow. John closed his eyes and breathed in. The air stuttered over his tongue, and Sherlock ducked to kiss his mouth. It was chaste and warm, filling John with a sense of lightness. He felt airy, weightless, and sighed against Sherlock’s lips before the _Ghillie Dhu_ pulled away. 

John’s eyelids fluttered open, and he blinked up at the fae-creature still holding his face between his hands. The gentleness of his grip made John feel as if he were made from spun glass, and he sighed out another stuttering breath. 

“I found you, John Watson,” Sherlock told him gravely. “I pray you do not lose yourself again.”

  
  
  
  


Sunlight warmed his face, and John opened his eyes slowly. He was sitting in the chair outside the cottage, and he blinked, frowning as he took in his surroundings. It was early morning, the sun beginning to rise, its light dazzling his vision. Shaking his head, John settled his hands on the chair arms and looked for his cane. Failing to find it, he moved to rise, bracing for pain. 

But his leg held, firm and steady, and John stared down at it in shock. His brain waking slowly, he lifted a hand and touched his forehead, over his left eyebrow. His fingers drifted to his lips, and John breathed a shaky sigh as he remembered his nighttime wandering. The _Ghillie Dhu_ was said to only show kindness to children, saving anger for the grown humans who destroyed and cut down his forests. Yet, Sherlock had guided John out of the woods, just as he had the first time.

The _Ghillie Dhu_ remembered him. He had told John he was no longer lost, taken him to the edge of the forest, and John had tasted Sherlock’s lips, his breath. He had felt the bewitching warmth of him.

His cane forgotten, John stood without a limp or a trace of pain, his left leg as sturdy as it had been before Afghanistan. His shoulder still twinged, stiff with the early morning cold, but John knew some wounds were beyond healing fully. 

John took a moment to gaze into the distance at the far-off tops of trees bordering the horizon. Huffing a small, bewildered laugh, he turned toward the cottage. His stomach rumbled with hunger, and his mind buzzed with all he had to do to turn the old dwelling into a home. 

**____________**

John lived in the cottage where he was born, where he grew from a child to a man, and remained until his hair turned silver, and his skin became loose with age. He spent fifteen years working as a doctor in the village before retiring. After, John filled his days with tending a garden and coaxing flowers up the stone sides of his home. He would sit outside and sip his tea, and stare out at the treetops in the distance. No matter how he ached to return to their shadowed depths, he waited. 

It wasn’t time. Until it was, John made himself content. 

He never married, never had children of his own. But the children from the village often came to visit him in the afternoon, when John settled into his chair. They were enough for him, and John never regretted his solitude. 

He was alone, but not lonely.

When the children came, they kicked up dirt and shouted for John to tell them of Scotland from before the world moved on. They demanded to hear of what the moors had been like when fae and creatures of folklore moved through the lochs and wild grasses. 

And John, pausing to smile to himself, would tell them the stories his _seanmhair_ told him as a child. The words flowed from his lips like the refrain from a familiar, well-loved song or the worn pages of the notebook sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk, and the village’s children sat, enchanted, at his feet.

When his bones began to creak, and his heart slowed so that sometimes John wondered if it was still beating, he knew it was time. He closed up the cottage and hung the key on the door handle. The inside was clean and well-kept, standing ready for whoever might make it into a home after him. It had been John’s home as a child and again as an adult, and now the cottage was ready to belong to someone new. 

The sun began its descent from the heavens. John turned away from the door, knowing his work was at its end.

With every minute that passed, he felt the years begin to fall away. By the time the edge of the forest came into view, there was a spring in his step. A light shone in his eyes, which had begun to dim with each passing season. Now, they burned bright, lighting his face with an inner glow. As he had once done upon entering the woods long ago, John carried a cane. This one was pale, polished birch wood with a grinning skull carved into the handle. 

The closer he drew to the forest, the less he leaned upon it until he was walking under his own power, the cane abandoned against the trunk of a tree. 

When he reached the treeline, John stood tall with his shoulders straightened from the stooped posture of the elderly man he had become. His face shone with a youthful light, and, when he smiled, his eyes glimmered.

“Hello, you,” he murmured, his voice warm and steady, no longer quivering the way it had begun to as of late. John held out a hand to the shadows clinging beneath the trees, his smile broadening as a shape melted out of their dark embrace. The moon rose overhead, and the stars painted the approaching figure’s dark hair silver. 

A response came, spoken in a deep, resonating voice that brought to mind woodsmoke and peat moss. John gasped a breathless laugh at the sound of his name in that familiar tone. “John Watson.” 

Sherlock met him at the edge of the forest, the corners of his mouth twitching with gentle amusement. When John stopped before him, Sherlock reached out to cradle John’s up-turned face in his large, warm hands. His fingertips were soft as new leaves, his palms rough like tree bark. “Are you lost?” His eyes flashed the colour of the sea, of moor grass, of slate-grey storm clouds, and John nodded. 

“I am,” he whispered. Sherlock’s lips curved into a smile that bared his pointed teeth. Bending, he pressed a feather-light kiss to John’s brow, then his mouth, bringing with him the taste of honeysuckle. 

“I found you, John Watson.”

**____________**

**Author's Note:**

> **Scottish Gaelic words used:**
> 
> _Seanmhair:_ Grandmother  
>  _Slaugh:_ Restless spirits of the dead (such as the sinners, the bad). Often takes the form of dark creatures, including crows and ravens, to feed on the souls of the dying or lost  
>  _Mo Ghaol:_ My love  
>  _Ian:_ Scottish Gaelic equivalent of John
> 
> And, yes, apparently Sherlock means 'fair-haired' in the original English. Go figure.


End file.
